HeroicStories

by Cindy Robison
Taos, New Mexico, USA

When I first saw him, I was horrified. Nothing prepared me for the sight of his badly damaged eye. Martha had first told me about Rusty awhile back. He was a neighborhood dog that was allowed to roam free and he often came to her home for treats. When she saw that his eye had been damaged, she mentioned it to his owners. Their response was that they did not believe in veterinarians and they were going to just “let his eye dry up and fall out on its own.” Rusty was a beautiful dog. He stood with his tail wagging, eager for attention, while frantically pawing at his mutilated eye. I knew that if he didn’t receive some kind of medical attention he would probably die.

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By Garfield “Chuck” Chatman
Spokane, Washington, USA

After difficult separation from my wife, I decided to go back to Spokane, Washington, where I had been stationed in the Air Force, since I had loved it there. I was living in South Carolina, and left with a shoestring budget. So many things went wrong on the 4,000-mile trip that I often I thought that I wouldn’t make it.

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by Joyce Schowalter
Seattle, Washington, USA

My Aunt, Hildred Dungan, was born in 1898 on a farm near Sedan, Kansas. Her family believed in hard work, education, honesty, and service to one’s community. To attend high school, she “boarded out” in a nearby town — it was too far to travel daily on horseback.

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by Chris Riley
New Jersey, USA

Two years ago my wife died. We had been married 11 years and our son Steven was almost 3 months old. Jill and I were very happy with Steve, and she was on maternity leave from her reference librarian job. One day I came home and found Jill dead on the floor. The autopsy showed that she most likely died of heart arrhythmia. There were no signs of struggle or pain; she was dead before she hit the floor.

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by Tom Snell
California, USA

More than thirty years ago my first wife and I went through a year’s struggle with cancer in our youngest child, five year old Timothy. Finally, in February 1975, the disease, which had spread to his lungs, reached the point where we had to tell Tim, “There’s nothing more the doctors can do. Do you want to stay here in the hospital with all your nurse and doctor friends, or would you like to come home?”

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Mary Burton, Michigan

When I was a child, my aunt and uncle lived a few hours away from my parents. My uncle was my father’s older brother. They didn’t have any children, and lived in a small house in a factory town.

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by Paul St. John
California, USA

In July 2003, I hit what I thought was my lowest point. I hadn’t been able to find a good-paying job in the film industry for many months, and finally had to settle for a costume warehouse job with a weekly take-home check of $547.39. If I had only myself to support, I could manage — but I have a wife, five children and two mortgages.

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Tina M., Fairfax, VA

When I was nine years old, my biological father skipped town and joined a carnival to avoid paying child support. Soon after, my mother started dating George, who lived across the street from us. George had no children of his own, and he and I got along well. During the summers, while my mother was at work, I spent hours out on jobs with him while he repaired TVs, video games, and jukeboxes (this was the ’80s).

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By Kelly Slocum
Washington, USA

My parents had been married for 41 years when both had to undergo biopsies for cancer at the same time. My father was the strong, stoic type and seemed relatively unalarmed about his diagnosis of prostate cancer. My mother, whose diagnosis was for breast cancer, had lost her mother to cancer as a teenager. She was terrified by the thought that either she or Dad might have this dreaded disease.

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